Editorial

Citation

Ashcroft, L. (2005), "Editorial", New Library World, Vol. 106 No. 7/8. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.2005.072106gaa.001

Editorial

The European Library (TEL) was officially launched earlier this year and will offer access to ten national collections when it replaces Gabriel (a virtual gateway). TEL also runs a new EU project, Tel-Me-Mor, which aims to provide technical and metadata help for the new member states so that their national library collections can also be made available online. A multitude of EU projects exist on different subjects. The drawing together of information from EU projects, other research projects and relevant standards on a topic can be a complex and time-consuming task. However, Glosiene and Manzhukh, in their article, provide a new perspective on usability (considering a usability framework for memory institutions) by bringing together various ISO standards and material from research projects (particularly EU projects) and corporate initiatives. They point out that “despite valuable guidance on the management of usability initiatives, the application of ISO standards is a challenge for practitioners in memory institutions who may find themselves confused by the massive amounts of information available, multiple connections between different standards, and unexplained overlaps”. Both the discussion of ISO standards and EU projects as they affect usability is very useful as is the inclusion of concrete examples.

Research by Jakob Nielsen into web site usability suggests that some library web sites may need to be redesigned and rewritten to make them accessible to lower-literacy users. His research suggests that simplifying a web site for lower literacy users leads to drastic improvements, which are not at the expense of higher literacy users. In particular, government and health web sites are likely to make lower-literacy users a priority. Albright's article provides a much broader focus on telecommunications, reporting on examination of the bi-directional relationship between telecommunications infrastructure and national development for countries worldwide. The economic, social and political development, and cultural changes that result from telecommunications infrastructure are investigated.

In 1994 the International Dunhuang Project was founded specifically to collaborate on increasing access to the treasures of the Dunhuang library cave and Silk Road treasures by creating a comprehensive online catalogue of all the material, linked to high quality digital images. This was early days for a digitisation project, but ten years down the line this has developed into a collaborative project with a web site which received more than 15 million visits from more than 83,000 distinct hosts in 2004 – with work ongoing to provide access to more material. The article by George evaluates a much smaller digitisation project at the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries, with focus on exploring the issues relating to acquiring copyright permission to digitize books for access via the internet. The two year study provided insight into the process, problems and obstacles confronting libraries seeking to develop their digital collections.

CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) and Sconul (Society of College, national & University Libraries) have celebrated a joint declaration on working together, envisaging a future where policy development and professional support for staff would be the focus of shared effort. Joint policy development will focus on scholarly communication and support for research, learner support and information literacy, and access and diversity. Other work will include establishing procedures to enable rapid response on key issues. Working together spans many areas in the library and information world, and the article by Meng and Liu focuses on China's National Science and Technology Library (NSTL). Their case study evaluates the historical development of scientific and technological resource sharing among libraries and information centres. They discuss the construction of NSTL as a sci-tech information resource sharing system which offers web-based information services.

Technology is transforming the way all organisations work, and the current shift in emphasis to IT can raise issues on who are the best people to understand information flows. User requirements are to the fore when resources are moved from the library to the desktop, meaning that the service may be used by people with a greater variety of needs. This can result in a new set of strategically focused goals, which can require new staff roles and accompanying competencies. In turn this can result in a strategy to train staff to maximise the benefits of changing services. Jeal, in her article, describes the first steps in a process of service re-engineering (Business Process Re-engineering) in the Information Services Division of the University of Salford. Key processes will be re-engineered providing a customer-focused service, investing time in staff training to ensure all round customer care and in staff management to ensure effectiveness. This is the start of a continual process of revision, responding to developments within the higher education arena.

The British Council's enCompassCulture web site has a new section www.encompassculture.com/readinggroupstwin/ which helps reading groups find partners elsewhere, making twinning possible with a reading group overseas. An example of a recent request is groups in Zambia and Norfolk. The British Council can help with finding a twin, and the enCompassCulture website provides advice and help, such as setting up and maintaining reading groups, booklists, information about books, webboard chat and an Online Reader in Residence. In their article, Gosine-Boodoo and McNish look at a different aspect of libraries in different countries. They consider the professional skills of librarians in developed and developing countries, and discuss the results of a pilot research study. They point out that their study is also intended to encourage key players from different countries to unite for the enhancement of librarians' professional development.

Linda Ashcroft